


Hold the Line

by octobersymphony



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octobersymphony/pseuds/octobersymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three phone calls, after the end of the season: of unexpected evolution, devastating ends and new beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Post-season 2007.

_I'm afraid that I'll spend the better part of next year  
Scared that I might need you._

David calls him only minutes after the Renault announcement about Fernando has made the top story at autosport.com.

"Looks like it'll be you and me again next season, after all," he says, like he hasn't been the one who told every journalist 'we have contracts for next year, so don't even mention bloody Alonso to me' for the past six weeks. What is Mark supposed to reply to that, anyway?

He settles for sarcasm – or at least, he thinks he's being sarcastic when he says, "Yeah, well, sorry mate. You're stuck with me."

On the other end of the line, David laughs that full, throaty, rumbling laughter of his that brings out those tiny lines around his eyes, and he tells him, "Fuck, no! I'd take you over Alonso any day." 

And the thing that gets to Mark the most is he knows, underneath the joking, David is being serious. 

Before David, his team mate was always just another guy on the track, just another rival to beat. Team-mates were people who he was forced to stand next to at publicity events, a necessary evil he'd have liked to do away with. He remembered sitting down with some rookie, who'd made the mistake of knocking on the door of Mark's hotel room on a Friday night asking whether he wanted to join him for a drink, and making sure he understood the difference between team mate and friend. The lines had always been clearly drawn, and he'd never been in danger of stepping over them like so many of his fellow drivers had done, and paid so dearly for.

Trust David to burst in, blur the lines and burn Mark's principles down, one by one. First it was just a casual hand to his shoulder, then a quick, friendly ruffle of his hair, later – which somehow led to hugging after a race, something that might have been appropriate in parc fermé but not in the privacy of his motorhome where it happened. It had been fine when that had brought them to David's hotel room, getting pissed together after a race gone badly a couple of times. Yet somehow they had ended up sharing breakfast on a morning after which never should have been a morning after in the first place.

Sometimes, when Mark takes a breath and thinks about it all, he's scared shitless because he never expected this. He never wanted any of this, and now that he has it, he isn't sure what to do other than let it happen and see where the tide takes him.

"What the hell makes you think I'd have been the one to have to make room for Alonso, you wanker?" Mark says, but the banter is hollow and perfunctory, just a placeholder for all the things he doesn't say. 

"Not like they'd let their best driver go," David shoots back cheerfully, chuckling when Mark tells him to fuck off.

He wishes it was more awkward, more bitterly competitive, more angry. He could deal with that because that's what Formula 1 is supposed to be like. Not like this, not this easy-going comradeship. He's seen enough friendships and short-lived affairs go sour in this business, ruining careers and lives, and he cannot quite believe that he, _they_ , should be an exception.

Yet, when David asks, "See you at testing, then?" – a pointless question that only masks another, much more serious one, Mark finds himself agreeing, and it feels like a promise.

* * *

_It's not like every devastating end  
Brings a new beginning. _

"… please leave a message after the signal tone," a pleasant, well-articulated female voice tells Fernando, and he thinks, _Why the fuck not?!_

He's had too much to drink and his head feels afloat and heavy at the same time, and maybe that's why he's calling Ron at two fucking am. Maybe he's calling him because he knew Ron wouldn't be answering the phone at this time of the night, and he's sure he will not listen to the message in the morning; Ron will hear drunken, slurred Spanish ranting and he'll listen for half a minute before figuring Fernando has nothing important to say anyway and erasing the message. 

Maybe he's calling Ron because, when Fernando picked up his cell phone and skimmed through the saved numbers, he realized that there was no one left to call: Lewis is not his team mate anymore, Kimi is the champion, and Heikki has suddenly turned into a rival. Fernando had been too quick to break contact with his former mates from the lower series, and none of the multitude of friends he has outside racing could ever truly understand. He can't call his manager, who's worked so hard for this deal, and he certainly can't call Flavio. Not if what he wants to say, essentially, is that he hates the idea of returning to Renault.

He can call Ron though, and say what he cannot tell anyone else, secure in the knowledge that what he has to say will stay between him and the answering machine. It's a strangely comfortable, if lonely thought.

He sits down on the floor, between his hotel bed and the nightstand, and tells the machine how much he hates the way things have turned out. That all of this is Ron's fault, and Norbert's, and Martin's, and Lewis's, and fuck, yeah, maybe also his own. He says how he never wanted it to end like this, that he never wanted to run back to Renault and that it fucking feels like retreat, like giving up and conceding defeat. His tongue is heavy and slow, but it doesn't matter, because no one is supposed to ever hear this, and no one will. Ron's Spanish is probably too bad to make it past the first sentence, so who cares if he's being coherent or not.

Except, of course, he apparently forgot that this is not his year and that the fates seem to have marked 2007 as the year when they can fuck up his life as thoroughly as possible and throw him one curve-ball after the fucking next – he probably shouldn't be surprised when there's suddenly a voice on the other end of the line, and it's not the pleasant woman on the answering machine telling him he's run out of time.

"Then why did you go back, if you know that you'll be miserable there anyway?" Ron asks, and it hits Fernando like a punch to the gut. He wonders how long Ron's been listening and how much of Fernando's rant he understood.

Ron's question hangs in the air, heavy and oppressive, squeezing the truth out of Fernando like iron claws. 

"Because I couldn't stay," he says. It's as simple as that, and yet so much more complicated. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the nightstand, wishing he was someone else, wishing that he could go back in time and start the season all over again: Lewis' bright smile in Melbourne, like a kid in a toy store, Ron's hand curving around the back of his neck, laughing together, the world at their feet and the year so fresh and promising ahead of them. It seems so long ago now. "I couldn't stay," he repeats, with feeling, almost desperate.

"No, you couldn't," Ron agrees, without anger in his voice, only resignation. 

Fernando has run out of things to say, and Ron doesn't offer anything of his own. Yet neither of them ends the call, not for minutes. Fernando sits, phone pressed against his ear, listening to the soft in and out of Ron's breath on the other end of the line.

It's almost funny he thinks that after everything, after all the public arguments and the angry words, they should end like this: in silence.

* * *

_Feels like I'm in a race with myself  
And I don't know if I will win. _

"So, what's racing in the States like?" Ralf asks when his phone call is answered, forcing himself to skip the preliminaries and get straight to the point. Anything to avoid the risk of blurting out something stupid, like 'Why do you never call me, asshole?' or 'Good to hear your voice,' or maybe, 'I miss you.'

"Hello to you too," Juan greets him with good-natured sarcasm, and there's some surprise in the realization that it really _is_ good to hear his voice. "It's fun. Wouldn't recommend it for you though, it's real men racing each other here, not little boys."

Ralf is rolling his eyes before he remembers that the gesture is pointless because Juan won't be able to see anyway. "And yet, they let you in. Honestly though, I'm thinking about it. Got an offer and it doesn't look half bad."

"So, what? You are going to pack up your stuff and move to the States? What would Cora say?"

"She'd tell me to get her front row tickets for the New York fashion week," Ralf replies flippantly, but what he really means is 'She's my best friend and she'll support me whatever I decide to do.' He doesn't need to say that though, because Juan knows Cora and their relationship well enough to read between the lines anyway.

Juan chuckles, but when he speaks again, his voice is serious. "You sure you really want to do this?"

There's something about this that makes Ralf's gut clench. Maybe it's because Juan's question suddenly makes what used to be a vague, hare-brained idea seem so much more real, like something that could actually happen, and this is a notion that excites and scares him at equal measure. 

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I'm just trying to look at all my options. So, will you tell me what it's like?"

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and after a long moment's silence, Ralf almost thinks that the phone call has disconnected. "Why don't you come over here in January? We could talk about it, and you could see for yourself," Juan says, and then he surprises Ralf by adding, "It'd be good to see you."

Coming from Juan, that's almost a declaration of love. 

Ralf is pretty sure he's supposed to give some glib comeback to get them back to their status quo, but he's _tired_ of their status quo and he doesn't really see any point in pretending that they still don't like each other. So the answer Juan gets is a soft-spoken, "Likewise."

They agree on a place and a date, and when Ralf says something about booking a hotel Juan snorts and says dryly, "You can crash here. I thought that was the whole point of the exercise." 

Ralf laughs quietly, a little shakily, into the phone and thinks, for the first time in months that things are going to be okay.

End


End file.
